Carolyn's Big Decision
by Shappeybunny
Summary: (Cabin Pressure) It is 1990. Carolyn has a decision to make about her family's future that could change everything. Featuring 45-year old Carolyn and 10-year old Arthur.


******Carolyn's Big Decision**

Carolyn poured herself a large gin and tonic and let her gaze drift out through the French doors to the garden, where a squashed football was sitting getting mildewed in the wet grass. She wouldn't usually have a drink this early – it wasn't even four o'clock – but she needed something to stiffen her resolve. Today was a day for big decisions.

If she were honest, she had already made the decision, in her head; the gin was to help her get through the first of two potentially very difficult conversations she needed to have over the next 24 hours. One with her ten year old son, Arthur, when he arrived home from school some time in the next fifteen minutes, and the other with her husband, Gordon, when he returned from a business trip tomorrow afternoon. If the first went badly, she wouldn't need to have the second. If it went ___well._.. it was going to change all their lives, for better or worse.

Arthur was nearly eleven. He had just begun his last year at middle school, and Carolyn had started to worry about what was going to happen next year. There was no way he was going to pass the entrance exam to Fitton Grammar, and although both she and Gordon had many faults, hypocrisy was not one of them, which ruled out the Catholic school. It was the Comp or nothing.

She had a fear he would flounder at the Comp. Boundless enthusiasm and relentless cheeriness wasn't a problem for a small boy who wanted to make friends. But children grew up and grew more cynical, more concerned with cliques and seeming cool and fitting in. Less tolerant of difference. Arthur's particular brand of sunny naivete was the opposite of "cool". His inability to recognise sarcasm and tendency to take absolutely everything anyone said at face value wouldn't help either. He wasn't clever. He wasn't good at sport. He was prone, when nervous, to doing terrible impersonations of Gracie Fields. He was going to be ripped to pieces.

At least at a private school Gordon's money would be able to buy Arthur out of all that. It was one thing he could do for him, ___owed_ him really. She hoped boarding school would be a safe haven for him, and ironically, considering Gordon would be paying for it, a safe haven away from his own father.

The catalyst for her decision had come a few weeks ago. Gordon had arrived home from a trip a day early, his flight having been cancelled. The sound of the key in the lock startled both of them, but Arthur had frozen, staring at the door, then jumped to his feet and immediately turned off the television in case it annoyed his dad. Then he hadn't quite known what to do. There was no other way out of the front room, and he had just stood there, hovering nervously, gaze fixed on the door handle, eyes filled with fear. A child should not be afraid of his father.

It was hard to imagine now, but in another few years, when Arthur was a bit older and bigger, he might stop being afraid, and start fighting back. Fear might turn to hatred and resentment. Worse, the unhappy, silent, nervous boy he was around his father might take over the sunny, chatty, happy boy he was the rest of the time. Carolyn would never forgive herself if that happened.

It wasn't always like this. Arthur was a placid baby. He slept through the night from very early on, he never threw screaming fits like other children, he smiled at everyone; he was a delight, in fact. And then he started talking.

Gordon had been proud enough for the first few months - a boy child to follow in his glorious footsteps! - then bored but mostly indifferent ("Kids only get interesting once you can have a conversation with them"), then frustrated ("What's he saying? Isn't he supposed to be able to tie his own laces by now?"), and finally embarrassed by and ashamed of his son.

He wasn't academic, he wasn't sporty, he wasn't good at anything that Gordon considered worthwhile. He ___certainly _couldn't be relied on to just say something polite and bland and normal when introduced to people. If Gordon was forced to bring his family along to some industry event his parting instruction to his son was invariably, "For Christ's sake just don't talk to anyone. These are important people. I don't want you showing me up."

Most of the time though, he just ignored his son, or at least, tried to. If someone asked him about his family, he would just give his son's name and age, and then quickly change the subject before he could get dragged into the competitive parental boasting that always seemed to ensue when those "important" people got together. A's son was at Cambridge. B's daughter played the cello to concert standard. C's son had been head-hunted by the England Under-16 Cricket Team. Gordon's silence on the subject of his son on these occasions spoke volumes.

She remembered Gordon's reaction on the day they learned - the hard way, after a ruined little girl's birthday party and a trip to A & E - about Arthur's strawberry allergy. Of all the things to be allergic to, something so innocent and unthreatening as a strawberry. She had come home that night with an armful of leaflets, a terrifying-looking EpiPen with which she was expected to jab her child if this happened again, and an appointment with an allergy specialist for the following week. Gordon's reaction was to treat it as something Arthur had ___done_ rather than something that had ___happened_ to him, she remembered his exasperated "Oh, for Christ's sake!" and "Why can't he be allergic to something ___normal_, like nuts?"

Fortunately Arthur had not been remotely perturbed by the incident, and certainly not frightened, which was, she supposed, a blessing, even if it was only because he had no idea how serious it could have been. On the contrary, he had gleefully relished telling everyone who would listen about his ride in the ambulance with the nee-naw sirens and the flashing blue lights. On the dozens of occasions it had happened since, he had been just as unfazed, once wandering in from the garden and nonchalantly announcing, "Mum, my mouth's gone funny again. Can I watch He-Man?" Sometimes it took other people to notice. The adults would be panicking all around him while he sat there happily drawing in his colouring book or with his eyes fixed on the television, unaware of and unbothered by all of the fuss. Mummy's little space cadet.

Unfortunately, even Arthur wasn't ___completely _oblivious. He knew that his father was frustrated and embarrassed by him, even if he didn't quite understand why. In his world, everyone was brilliant and everything was fantastic. Faced with someone who told him it wasn't, and worse, made him ___feel _that it wasn't, Arthur just didn't know how to deal with that.

He was so starved for any sign of affection from his father that if Gordon were home for longer than a few days, enough for Arthur to get used to him being there and relax a little bit around him, he would turn into a little praise-seeking missile. Gordon would find himself bombarded with offers of tea, coffee, sandwiches, biscuits, gin and tonics, the newspaper, the remote control... it was constant and exhausting. A simple "thank you, Arthur" would elicit the widest smile and a child bouncing on air for the rest of the day. Conversely a terse "too much milk" would cause Arthur to overreact hugely, apologising over and over, insisting on making another, better cup of tea, whether Gordon wanted it or not, and sometimes almost in tears at what he saw as his failure to please his father. Carolyn supposed that since Gordon's trips home were so infrequent, these interactions took on a massive, disproportionate significance to his son.

In the summer holidays, Gordon had shouted at his son for something trivial like singing in the car, and this had caused Arthur to be miserable for almost a whole week afterwards. He had become withdrawn and monosyllabic, and spent the next few days hiding in his room, building huge, elaborate structures out of Lego and drawing in the big sketchpad his Gran - Carolyn's mother - had sent him for Christmas.

Drawing was another thing that Arthur loved but his father had no time for. He liked to draw little cartoons. There was a superhero dog character in a cape who wore roller skates. He was called Super Dog. (Arthur found it difficult to make up names. His stuffed bear was just called Bear, and he had briefly owned a gerbil called Bill, until it escaped one day while its cage was being cleaned, and was presumably eaten by next door's cat.) Super Dog's cape was just for show - "He's a dog, Mum, dogs can't fly!" - and that was why he needed the roller skates. Well, it probably made sense if you were ten.

Carolyn tried to encourage and praise her son as much as possible with his drawing - God knows he got little enough praise from elsewhere - but Gordon thought it was a waste of time and had no qualms about telling him so. Consequently, Arthur simply stopped doing or talking about the things he liked whenever his father was home. Basically, he stopped being himself. Other children threw screaming tantrums or hit out when they were upset; Arthur just went quiet. A silent Arthur was simultaneously a blessed holiday for the ears, and a sign that all was not well.

How had she let it get this bad, go on so long? By not challenging her husband, she was, to all intents and purposes, colluding with him, and legitimising his behaviour. When Gordon was at home, she tried to keep Arthur quiet and out of his way as much as possible. She wasn't afraid of her husband, but after all these years she knew the flashpoints and did her best to avoid them. It was easier that way. She pretended to herself it was for her son's benefit, but what she was teaching him was that his father's attitude was reasonable and normal, and that modifying his own behaviour so as not to anger him was the correct response. Worse, that she cared more about not annoying Gordon than her own son's happiness.

She would leave tomorrow, but where would she go? She hasn't worked in ten years, she has no savings, no home of her own, no family nearby, and in any case she would rather live on the streets than ask her sister for help. None of her friends would be willing to take on both her and Arthur, and she wouldn't want to be beholden to them anyway.

If she left Gordon she would have nothing. She would have to start again at forty-five with two failed marriages behind her and a son in tow, too old to go back to stewardessing, the only job she had ever known. Besides, working as cabin crew wasn't a job you could do part-time. You couldn't pick and choose which flights you went on, and even if you could get a job with a UK regional airline, there were always flights to Europe and overnighters and delays. It just wasn't practical with a child, especially when his father was also frequently away from home for several days at a time too. On her own, it would be impossible.

Even if she could find a reasonably-paid full-time job doing something else, rent on a two bedroom flat would be expensive, and she might have to move away for work, which would mean uprooting Arthur from his school and all of his friends.

No, she was stuck in this marriage for the foreseeable future, but she could give her son an escape route. God knows she didn't want to send him away, but it was the best thing she could do for him right now. And then maybe she could try and find herself a part-time job, start putting aside a bit of money, possibly even take a few afternoon business courses and get some up-to-date experience and qualifications. Maybe in a couple of years she would finally be able to leave, get a place of her own, and in the holidays Arthur could live with her. It hardly seemed likely that Gordon would fight for custody. She blanched. The thought of Arthur being forced by a judge to live with his father was too appalling for words.

Maybe things would have been alright if they hadn't had a child. They could have carried on as they were, two busy people whose jobs and hectic social lives meant they barely saw each other. In the early days, that was part of the appeal. And the sex. My ___God_, the sex! When you had only a snatched few hours between flights together, things invariably ended up in the bedroom. It was true what they said about absence. Well, it was ___then_. Nowadays she found Gordon's occasional presence in the house an irritation and an inconvenience, and the sex was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. When he was home she found that, like her son, she was just waiting for him to leave.

She cursed herself for getting into this situation again. At least when her first marriage broke up, it was mutual. She was 29 not 45, still young enough to start again, and she didn't have a child to worry about. She had almost never been on her own. She wasn't sure she knew ___how_ to be. She was fifteen when she started going out with her first boyfriend, David, and that lasted for three years until she moved to London to become a stewardess. It was 1963, the Beatles had just released their first album, and the then 18-year old Carolyn was sharing a flat with three other girls. She was flying around the world, staying in exotic hotels, living the high life, meeting new people, going to parties and nightclubs and fancy restaurants, none of which she ever had to pay for. Back then, being an air stewardess was like being a film star. It was all impossibly glamorous. David was a car mechanic from Ormskirk. The poor boy didn't stand a chance.

She had met Ian at one of those parties. There had been... some overlap. He was older, thirty, sophisticated, a proper grown-up compared to her suddenly gauche and suburban boyfriend back home. Ian had a flat in Maida Vale, with no kitchen because he never cooked, just ate all his meals in restaurants. It was a far cry from the little suburban semi Carolyn had grown up in. She and Ian dated for a year and a half before he proposed. She was married at 21, which wasn't unusual for the time, but in retrospect, far too young, especially with the twelve-year age gap between them. They'd inevitably drifted apart. The decree nisi came through one week after her twenty-ninth birthday.

Carolyn had sowed a few wild oats that year, trying to make up for lost time before she hit thirty. And within another year she'd met Gordon, been swept off her feet, blinded really, by all of his charm and yes, all of his money too. Or at least, what Gordon's money could buy. For a few years their life had been a non-stop whirl of foreign holidays and friends with swimming pools and private jets and parties and drinks, there were___always_ drinks. In all the photographs of her and Gordon and their friends taken between about 1976 and about 1979, every single person always had a glass in their hand. Things were a lot different now. If you were at a party nowadays and expressed the intention to drive home after, say, half a glass of white wine or a small G & T, your hosts would practically stage an intervention.

It wasn't just the money. Carolyn had seen enough of it flashed around to be unimpressed by money for its own sake. Ian had been from a comfortably upper-middle class family; everything came easy to him. Gordon, though, was from a similarly modest background as Carolyn herself, and had worked hard to achieve his success. They were both ambitious people who believed in hard work, didn't assume the world owed them a living, and suffered no fools. Gordon was Australian, and his forthright nature fit very well alongside her plain-speaking, no-nonsense Lancastrian disposition. It seemed a good match.

Her mistake, in retrospect, was to agree to marry him. They were fine as they were. After they married, everything changed overnight. They moved from his flat in London to a large house just outside Fitton, a small town in the middle of nowhere in the Midlands that had nothing going for it except an airfield, which was the sole reason Gordon chose to live there. Fitton was not London. Fitton wasn't even Luton. It was too far for her friends to come to meet her for lunch or drinks. There was no train station. Gordon had persuaded her to give up her job when they got married – they didn't need the money, and to be fair, she hadn't needed much persuading. She was pushing 35, practically retirement age for a stewardess. Fifteen years of long-haul flights had taken their toll. The lure of a night in an exotic hotel could no longer compare to the lure of her own bed, in her own home.

Except, of course, it wasn't her home, and her bed was often empty, because Gordon's life hadn't changed at all. He was still flying around the world on business trips at least once a week. She was stuck at home on her own, bored and resentful, in a town she hated, and where she knew no-one. She missed her job and she missed her friends. Having a baby seemed like the obvious solution.

It wasn't. She found the other stay at home mothers she met dull and stupid. Far from relishing the opportunity for a bit of adult conversation, and a break away from their screaming offspring, all they seemed to want to talk about was the boundless joy of motherhood. Carolyn did ___not_find motherhood to be a joy. Carolyn found motherhood largely tedious, but mostly frustrating and exhausting.

Ten years on, her attitude had not softened. She loved her son, of course she did, but she didn't know if she could cope with Arthur on her own. She sometimes had such strong feelings of exasperation towards him that she had to leave the room to compose herself. It was God's little joke, perhaps; visiting a child that would test the patience of Mother Theresa on two people that barely possessed any. Sometimes in his frustration (usually when he'd been drinking), Gordon would express doubts as to Arthur's parentage, and although she knew he didn't actually believe it, she knew what he meant. Sometimes she looked at her son and felt as though he was a space alien beamed down into her living room. If she didn't have such strong memories of the forty-seven hours she had spent giving birth to him, she might even wonder herself.

For three years, from when Arthur was three years old to when he was six, she had allowed herself to be railroaded by Gordon into subjecting their son to a never-ending series of tests. Gordon was convinced there was something wrong with him, and as usual, the sheer force of his personality had overwhelmed any doubts she had. Besides, once you started on such a course, once doctors and child psychologists and ___professionals_ got involved, it was too late, you couldn't turn back. The ball had been set rolling and you could only watch on helplessly from the sidelines. A seemingly endless succession of these people had pushed her son from pillar to post, they had done all sorts of tests and showed him pictures, and asked him questions, and nodded thoughtfully and looked serious and made lots of little notes in the margins.

At first they had been worried that Arthur might be partially deaf; he seemed to be wrapped up in his own world and didn't pay attention to things going on around him. Well, he wasn't deaf, he'd just learned very quickly to tune out the noise of his parents arguing, and he lived in his head a lot, like many only children. Not deaf, just dreamy. He wasn't autistic either, a conclusion that the specialists took almost a year to reach, and which she could have told them herself after a thirty second glance at the leaflet.

And so it went on. All of them determined to stick a label on her son. He didn't have Attention Deficit Disorder, he was just a child possessed of a boundless supply of enthusiasm for everything. He wasn't dyslexic, just slow at reading. After a while she started to wonder if they weren't ___looking_ to find something wrong, so as to justify their own existence.

Maybe that was one of the reasons Gordon was so keen to get the professionals involved. If he could stick a label on his son, if there was some sort of medical reason for him being the way he was, then it no longer reflected badly on ___him_. If Arthur's behaviour embarrassed him in front of his friends, he had a ready-made explanation, an excuse. Oh, he's Autistic. Oh, he's got Something Or Other Syndrome. Better that than the shame of, "Sorry, he's just a bit slow".

The final straw had come when Arthur, aged six, had come to her in the kitchen and asked her, very seriously, "Mummy, what's wrong with me?" He had overheard his father demand it of her the night before. Carolyn had reassured him that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with him, lied that he must have misunderstood, and been racked with guilt for days afterwards. What else had he overheard? How much did he actually understand?

At the next appointment with the child psychologist, she had driven him there as usual, parked outside the building, and then for some reason she could not explain, been unable to get out of the car. Instead she drove him to the park and sat watching him playing on the swings and instantly making new friends. It was unusual for an only child to be so open and friendly towards strangers, adults and children alike, one of the doctors had told her, in a tone that suggested it was somehow a fault. Or worse, a symptom of yet something else that might be wrong with him.

She was sick of it, sick of them. They hadn't managed to find a label to stick on her son in three years of trying, but there was only one that mattered. He was just Arthur.

___Let him be who he is_, she decided.

Her child was creative and curious and loving and open and sunny and friendly and helpful (sometimes too much so), and most importantly of all, ___happy_. Well, most of the time. And those times when he wasn't happy weren't because there was something wrong with him, they were because there was something wrong with his father. If other people didn't have the patience to deal with him, that was their problem, not his. Their fault, not his.

So what if he was a bit slow at reading and a bit slow to understand sometimes, and a bit clumsy and uncoordinated? It might be a phase. He might grow out of it. And even if it wasn't... wouldn't she rather have a happy child than a smart one? Wasn't that what every parent wanted for their child, above all else, for them to be happy? She wished it ___were_ enough. She wished she didn't hope for more than that.

Not getting out of the car that day was the first time she had said no, I don't want this for my son anymore, and I don't want to be this person meekly accepting everything that happens either. She had informed Gordon of her decision that night, presenting it as a fait accompli:

"He is not going to the child psychologist anymore. He is a ___child,_ and should be allowed to be one. In three years none of these clowns has been able to find a single thing wrong with him, and do you know why? Because there is ___nothing wrong with him_. This is over, Gordon. I am not doing it anymore. ___Arthur_ is not doing it anymore."

Much to her surprise, Gordon had just rolled over. He had shrugged, told her, "If that's what you want, sweetheart", and never mentioned it again. Possibly because he had so little interest in his son that he just didn't care, but for Carolyn the triumph was a sweet one. A small triumph for her, a much bigger one for Arthur, and the first step in her fighting back. Also, the first step towards what she knew would one day be the inevitable end of her marriage.

And now it was five years later and Arthur was nearly eleven years old. He was still basically the same boy, just taller. She had been kidding herself when she thought it might be a phase. It wasn't. It was just his personality.

Oddly enough, father and son did have ___one_ thing in common. They were both very socially confident people, Arthur because his natural enthusiasm and naiveté meant he never considered that people might not like him, or that things might go wrong. Gordon never had a moment's self-doubt either, but that was mainly because in his mind, a) he was always right, and b) other people were idiots. Unlike his son, who possessed a great deal of empathy, Gordon just bulldozed over everyone with the sheer force of his personality. Oh, he could turn on the charm alright, but he could turn it off again just as easily. Woe betide anyone who crossed him, or anyone he decided wasn't worthy, like his son.

Gordon often referred to Arthur disparagingly as "___your_ son", usually when he had said or done something that Gordon found annoying. He would also frequently refer to his son in the third person, even though he was in the room - or more often, the car - at the time. "What's he wittering on about now?" "If he doesn't stop playing that stupid bloody car game, I swear I'll…" "Tell your son to shut up, will you?"

Yes, he ___was_ her son, yes, she would do everything in her power to make his life better and happier, and she didn't care anymore what Gordon had to say on the subject. He might consider it a waste of money to send his resolutely non-academic son to a good school, but he could easily afford it, and he owed Arthur that much at least. She would make him say yes, do whatever it took, use her - she shuddered in distaste at the very concept - ___feminine wiles_ if she had to. She was going to do it for ___her_ son.

She hoped he would thrive at boarding school. Maybe not academically, but hopefully find the space and freedom to be himself, away from his father's negative influence. She was certain he would love it - because Arthur not liking something was inconceivable - and that he would have made lots of new friends by the end of the first day. He definitely wouldn't be one of those homesick children ringing her up in tears every five minutes and begging to come home. At least, as long as ___home_ contained his father.

She knew how she would sell it to him. He wasn't a reader, didn't have the attention span for it, but he would lie on the floor in front of the television, rapt with attention, for the entire duration of an old black and white film, then drive his parents mad by going around talking like Joyce Grenfell or Sid James or Gracie Fields for days afterwards. Or at least, imagining he was. To anyone else it would just sound like the usual gobbledygook, but in a silly voice. He had a particular fondness for terrible British comedies from the '40s and '50s, and especially the St Trinian's films, a series set in a girls' boarding school. Less midnight feasts, tuck shops and jolly japes, more cheating at hockey, brewing illicit hooch, and blowing up the chemistry lab.

Not that Arthur would ever do anything like that, of course. The midnight feasts and jolly japes would be much more appealing. He was never deliberately badly behaved. Like many only children, he was very aware of what adults wanted and expected from him in terms of behaviour. Mostly it was just because his excitable nature got the better of him, or other children led him astray. He was very suggestible, and so eager to please that he found it impossible to say no. His default answer was always "Yes", sometimes before you had even finished asking the question. It was no good using that old "if X told you to go and jump off a bridge, would you do it?" argument on Arthur, because he probably ___would_. Likewise, she could easily imagine the teenage Arthur being offered cigarettes - or worse - and saying yes just to be polite.

She would worry about him every day if he were away at boarding school, but he had to go to school ___somewhere_, and better there than the Comp, where he would be an easy target for the bigger, rougher boys from the estate. A couple of years ago, after an incident with an older boy up the road who had pushed Arthur into a rose bush, she had briefly (for about five minutes) considered home schooling him, but soon dismissed that notion on the grounds that he'd probably be better off with a mother who ___hadn't_ been driven to a complete mental breakdown.

As if on cue, she heard the sound of her son's key in the lock, and quickly drained her glass. No turning back now.

"___Mu-um!"_

"In here, darling!"

He ambled into the living room and dropped his satchel onto the floor.

"Arthur," she said sternly, "What have you forgotten?"

"Oh, I don't know. What have I forgotten?"

"What are you wearing?"

"My school uniform."

"Ye-es. More specifically?"

"Oh! Shirt. Trousers. Socks. Shoes. Pants. Tie."

She waited for the penny to drop. And waited.

"I am referring to ___one_ of those things you just mentioned."

"Err… the tie's a stripey black and yellow colour?"

"Alright. Let's try this again, shall we? What are you ___not _wearing?"

"Err… all my other clothes?"

"___Slippers_, Arthur! ___Slippers_!"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Mum!"

He went back into the hall to change his shoes and Carolyn shook her head. How many ___times? _More pertinently, how many ___years_ had she been telling him to change his shoes the minute he walked in the door? The slippers were right there in front of him! And yet, every day, the same conversation. It was infuriating.

Arthur came back into the room, now wearing his slippers. He came straight over to his mother and gave her a big hug, as always. How many of her friends' children still did that without prompting? Most had reached the stage of flinching away and loudly protesting if they thought a hug, or worse, a kiss on the cheek, was about to be proffered by a parent.

"Hello, Mum!" he said cheerfully.

"Hello, Arthur. How was your day?"

"Excellent, we had double art because it's Wednesday and we always have double art on Wednesdays and I love art! We drew mythical creatures and I chose a griffin, only it came out a bit funny, so I told Miss Wilson it was a dinosaur and Miss Wilson said dinosaurs aren't mythical but I'm not sure what that means, oh, and Kevin Anderson ate a ___worm!_ And I had cheese and pickle sandwiches for lunch, and they're my ___favourite!_"

"I know what you had for lunch, Arthur, I made it, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Mum, Mum, guess what?"

"What?"

"No, you have to guess!"

"I have to guess which thing has happened or is about to happen from all the things that have ever happened or might ever happen?"

Arthur's smile didn't waver. If he didn't understand something said to him, he would just keep smiling and wait patiently until the person realised and explained themselves. Or didn't realise and started talking about something else.

Carolyn sighed. "I think you might have to give me a clue."

"Susan Briggs has got to wear ___glasses!_"

"___Who_ is Susan Briggs?"

"You know Susan Briggs, Mum; she used to be in the same class as me for Maths 'til third year, but then I started doing Special Maths, so she wasn't in the same class anymore."

___Special Maths._ One of those awful little euphemisms Carolyn loathed. Every child was special, but Arthur was ___Special_, with a capital S. Why couldn't they just call it Remedial Maths, like they used to when she was at school? Everyone - parents, teachers and kids alike - knew what it really meant.

Arthur was still talking.

"... went to her house for tea once, it was great, we had fishfingers, she's got a guinea pig!"

"Oh, ___that_ Susan Briggs."

"You ___do_ know her!"

"I have absolutely no idea who she is. Now, Arthur, sit down for a minute please; I want to talk to you."

"Okay, Mum."

He sat down immediately and gave her his full rapt attention. It was rather disconcerting.

"Well... you know that this is your last year at Fitton Juniors?"

An enthusiastic nod.

"Well... we need to choose a new school for you to go next year."

"Won't I go to Fitton Secondary?"

"Not necessarily, no. I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, and I wondered how you'd feel... about maybe... going to a boarding school instead?"

Arthur's eyes went wide. "___Wow._.." he breathed. "Like St Trinian's?"

"A ___bit_ like St Trinian's. Hopefully not ___too_ much though."

Arthur's mouth opened and closed rapidly, as though everything was ___so_ exciting, he couldn't decide what words to say first. Carolyn watched him cautiously.

"What do you think then, Arthur? Any questions?"

"Ooh, loads!"

"Yes, I rather suspected as much. Fire away, then."

"Where is it? Is it a castle? Oh, wow! Are there secret passageways? Are there… ___battlements?_"

"We haven't chosen a school yet, Arthur. I don't know whether it will have battlements."

"Would I sleep in one of those big long rooms, with loads of beds in a long line all down the sides?"

"A dormitory. Possibly, but I think it's more likely you'd be sharing a room with just a few other boys."

"No girls?"

"Well, I think there are some mixed boarding schools, but it's more likely you'll just be with other boys, yes."

"Can Neil come as well?"

"No, he'll be going to a different school. You can still see him in the holidays though. And you'll make lots of new friends, so -"

"What about Sanjay?"

"No, Sanjay will be going to a different school as well -"

"Can I have a badge?"

"A ___badge?_ What do you want a badge for?"

"You know, one of those little badges shaped like a… a… " - he demonstrated the shape in mid-air -

"...with a pointy bit at the bottom and two pointy bits at the top."

"That's a shield, Arthur. You know what a shield is."

"Yeah, a shield. Can I have a shield?"

"Do you mean a prefect's badge?"

"Yeah, can I have a prefect's badge?"

"Well, that will rather depend on whether you get made a prefect."

"Can I be a prefect?"

"That will be up to your teachers, Arthur, and whether you are well-behaved."

She was getting ahead of herself. She hadn't even discussed this with Gordon yet. Perhaps she would do well to dampen his enthusiasm a little, in case Gordon said no.

"Arthur, I know you're excited, but this is all still a year away. We have to find a school first."

"OK," he said cheerfully, then a moment later: "Is there a tuck shop, like at St Trinian's?"

Carolyn took a deep breath. "Arthur," she warned him, in the special tone of voice she reserved for those moments she felt her patience at breaking point. Mummy's Shut Up, Shut Up ___Now_ voice. "I ___told_ you; I do not know. We haven't chosen a school yet."

Arthur looked crestfallen. "There's no tuck shop?"

"Oh, alright, yes, ___fine_; there's a tuck shop. Probably."

"Yay!"

"Yes, I thought you'd be pleased."

"Oh, oh, oh! Can I go and watch my St Trinian's video again?"

"Yes, if you must."

"Can I have a sandwich first?"

"No, it'll spoil your tea. You can have a satsuma."

"___Brilliant!_ I love satsumas!"

Arthur bounded off in the direction of the kitchen, and Carolyn watched him go. Well, that had gone better than she had expected. Now she just had to persuade Gordon.

Perhaps she should have asked him first, but it would have been worse to sell Gordon the idea (something for him to boast about to his friends at last, ___his_ son at a posh private school attended by the sons of obscure members of foreign royalty, backbench MPs, and other moneyed businessmen with ideas above their station), and then discover that Arthur actually wanted to go to the Comp, with his friends, or worse, thought he was being sent away. Which, she reminded herself, he ___was_, but with the very best of intentions.

Arthur's head appeared around the door again. "Mum, can I go out on my bike?"

"I thought you were going to watch your film?"

"I know, but I'm too excited!"

"Alright then, but not on the road, and don't go any further than the end of the street."

"I know."

He rushed at her and enveloped her in another tight, warm hug.

"Thanks, Mum. You're the best!"

"Goodness. Whatever for?"

"For letting me go to boarding school," he beamed.

Arthur rushed off to get his bike from the garage, and Carolyn rubbed her temples wearily. She had the beginnings of a headache coming on.

___Letting_ him. In his head it was already his own idea and she was the one making a long-held wish come true. If Gordon vetoed the idea, and he couldn't go after all, he was going to be crushed. She had to persuade Gordon, and she had to do it tomorrow, as soon as he arrived home, because Arthur was absolutely incapable of keeping a secret and was entirely likely to greet his father with the deathly words, ___"Guess what?"_

"Hi, Mum!" said Arthur cheerfully, coming back into the room and interrupting her thoughts.

"I thought you were playing on your bike. It's not raining, is it?"

"No, I decided I wanted to watch my video after all. Is that alright?"

"Of course. Only please pick one thing and do it; all this coming and going is making me dizzy."

"Sorry, Mum."

"That's quite alright."

"Maybe..." he said hesitantly, "Maybe you could come and watch it with me? It might help."

"Help?"

"You know, so you can see what a real boarding school is like."

There wasn't any point explaining that St Trinian's was not a real boarding school. This was a child who had watched the film at least twenty times before, and had somehow missed the vital fact that the character of the Headmistress was being played by an actor in drag. Or that the same actor also played the Headmistress's brother (which really ought to have been a clue). Or indeed, that the character's name was Miss Fritton, with an R, and not Miss Fitton, which was the name of the town they lived in.

"Can we go and watch it now?" he asked eagerly.

This time tomorrow, she remembered, Gordon would be home. This time tomorrow, she will have told him. Tonight might be the last night of peace – in as much as ___any_ time spent with Arthur was ever peaceful - she and her son could enjoy together for some time.

"Why not?" she said, throwing caution to the wind; "And I tell you what, instead of me cooking dinner tonight, why don't you decide what you want for tea?"

His eyes went wide. "Really?"

"Yes, really. God help me."

"Can I have a jam sandwich and a banana milkshake and a satsuma? Can I have ___two_ satsumas?"

"You can have ___three_ satsumas if you like."

Arthur giggled. "___Mu-um!_ That's silly. No-one can eat ___three_ satsumas."

"Indeed. I don't know what I was thinking. Come on then, shall we watch this film?"

"Hooray!"

Arthur put in the video, clambered onto the sofa next to her and curled up with his feet in her lap, something he never did when his father was home, because Gordon thought he was too old for that kind of thing. Well, Gordon could go hang. Things were going to be very different around here from now on. Well, ___some_ things were going to be different...

"___Slippers_, Arthur."

He blinked at her in confusion. "I'm wearing them."

"Yes, and what is our rule about slippers on the sofa?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Mum."

He kicked off his slippers and settled down to watch the film, his eyes widening in awe when the camera panned back to reveal the school in all its castle-like glory. No battlements, but a turret. As the familiar music started up and the little cartoon schoolgirls appeared on screen, waving their hockey sticks around their heads in a frankly dangerous manner, he breathed softly,

"Aw, Mum, it's going to be ___brilliant…"_

Carolyn had to agree.

* * *

_**Notes: **_

_I like to think of Mummy's Shut Up, Shut Up Now voice as an early precursor to Code Red._

_I enjoyed writing the Carolyn/ Arthur dialogue section so much I could have kept on writing them forever. I may have to write another story set in this period, just so I can!_

_Hope you enjoyed reading this story, and do please leave a review if you can. It's always lovely to hear what readers think of my stories. Thank you kindly._

_Shappeybunny x_


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